Got an invitation to the advance screening for the Fantastic Four movie. Not TERRIBLY in advance. It’ll be next Thursday at 7 PM. But hey, at least I’ll have seen it before Shore Leave, a convention in Maryland I hope as many of you as possible will be attending.
PAD
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Okay, I am – like – seriously jealous. Can I come? You can smuggle me in in a duffel bag. Fantastic Four was the first comic I ever collected, and I have been jonesing to see this movie for SO LONG.
(Hey, I even saw a bootleg copy of the first one back a few years ago.)
Unfortunately I will not be able to make it to Shore Leave this year. I have, however, enjoyed chatting with you (you convinced my friends and I to stick around for “Bye Bye Buffy”, making us get back home at 3AM :-P) and hearing you speak at the three previous Shore Leaves, and hope to see you there again in the future.
So, what’s your *spoiler free* opinion of the flick? I’ve read a lot of negative comments about the Roger Corman bootleg, and I personally feel that they’re very unfair. Considering the shoestring budget that was available and that the only reason for it to be made was that the rights could be retained, I thought that it was pretty good under the circumstances.
Unfortunately, tight finances are preventing me from going to MD this coming weekend. I hope that you and the missus have a great time!
Sorry. I have to get a new set of eyes! What I meant to say was that I LOOK FORWARD to reading your *spoiler free* review of the flick!
Just out of curiousity, have you seen any of the film already, or did you write the novelisation entirely from the script?
I was going to try for advance screening tickets (a group here called Starland has little contests for screenings for just about every genre film and more), but they decided to pick a theatre that I cannot get to.
The wáņkërš.
This one is giving me almost the opposite feeling I had for Batman Begins. The screwing with Doctor Doom’s origin is bad enough but I could accept that if the rest of the movie didn’t scream “It’s Loud and Dumb!”
That said, I wish they had done a campy 60’s send up like Peyton Reed wanted to do when he was on as director. That would have been fun!
::Shiver:: No offense Ryuukuro but I’m glad you weren’t producing the movie. The FF deserve more respect then a campy 60’s movie feel.
I think that’s what makes me so sad as an FF fan. People have these bizarre notions of what the FF were. That it was just a very 60’s comic book with weird characters and crazy art. When in fact, it was a very heart-felt book with great human interaction before Spider-man even thought about being responsible with his great powers.
It makes me sad that FF have been largely pushed to the background since the 70’s. It’s like Marvel just sort of gave up on it. I think part of the problem is that everyone wants to keep the FF in a time capsule and keep the costumes the same, keep the relationships the same, etc. Every time a writer comes along and has a character grow up, another writer comes along and hits the reset. I know this happens in other titles, but the FF seem the worst off. I think the character of Johnny is the worst for this. It seems like every new creator on the book has ignored all the stuff that Byrne and Defalco did to make the character more mature. They want the old Johnny from the 60’s. But he’s not a teenager anymore!!!
He can be immature but still act like the 26-28 year old he is.
In any case, I’m looking forward to this movie. I am happy it has a lighter tone then X-men or Daredevil. I do think this fits the FF. I saw the eleven clips Yahoo Movies posted and was laughing out loud during a lot of them. I think it could be a fun, fun movie. I get the general feeling that general people and comic book fans who don’t post on the internet are excited about this movie. We’ll see. 🙂
Ryuukuro:
I totally agree with your concerns about Doom. While they have cast a good actor in the role, it looks as though they may have just screwed with the character too much.
But, I have to totally disagree with the “campy 60’s” idea, at least for this group, at this time. The Fantastic Four began the Marvel age of comics, paving the way for Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, etc., but may not be as well-known to the public as some of their successors. Until they are as familiar and acknowledged as they deserve (and let’s hope there won’t be many moviegoers who say “Hey! These guys are just ripping off ‘The Incredibles’!”), I don’t think we can risk them being presented as a joke. (And I do enjoy the Batman TV show, to a point; but it isn’t the only form of Batman in the public consciousness.)
And PAD – it seems funny that you saw an earlier screening of Batman Begins, a character whom you’ve hardly written (as far as I know) for a company with whom you no longer have any projects, than you will of Fantastic Four, a movie which you only … wrote the official novelization of. [Yeah, I know I ended in a preposition; the re-wording of the sentence sounded too awkward to me.] I suppose it must just be a fluke of the scheduling of the respective screenings; still, seems a little off ….
I saw a trailer for this before a preview of War of the Worlds I went to last Thursday and I have no idea whether this will connect with a modern audience; names like “Mr. Fantastic” and “The Thing” had the audience in theatre chuckling with derrision. After gritty comic-book inspired films like Sin City and Batman Begins the FF seems both out of date and out of place to me.
JonWes…what you said about Johnny is exactly the conversation I was having with the guys at the comic shop last week. I kept picking up Waid’s FF since everyone was talking about it…but the one thing that constantly ruined the book for me was the fact Johnny looked and acted about 14. I kept thinking they merged Johnny and Franklin and averaged out their ages!
Spoiler-free comments. I got into an advance screening last Saturday. I enjoyed the movie. I can’t say it’s as good as Spider-man or the X-men, but it’s a good movie. Also, everyone who I talked to about the movie liked it too; even the comic fans.
Yes, Doom is different than comic book Doom, but we should keep in mind that first appearance of Doom in comics wasn’t like later appearances either.
I had fun with it; I enjoyed it and I will see it again.
And I’m looking forward to reading the novalization.
KIP
Peter? When you post your review (or if you want to make a recommendation based on having read and adapted the screenplay), can you please do this father of an excited five-year-old superhero fan a favor and let us know whether the film is appropriate for younger audiences? As a frame of reference, my daughter handled the two SPIDER-MAN films just fine, as well as PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and all the HARRY POTTER films. She also loves STAR WARS, but we haven’t taken her to see REVENGE OF THE SITH because we think it’s too intense for her. She’s expressed a lot of interest in seeing FANTASTIC FOUR (the only other movie she’s ever asked to go see was SHARK BOY & LAVA GIRL, which I happily obliged), so I’m trying to survey trustworthy opinions. If I don’t get enough of ’em in advance, I’ll obviously screen it first, but I’d trust your advice on this matter.
I’m telling you right now, based on my fairly thorough knowledge of the script, that if your daughter was able to handle Spidey, Pirates and the Potter films, there is nothing that is going to be a problem for her in the FF film.
It’s possible my opinion could change upon seeing the final film, but I doubt it.
PAD
Excellent! Thanks for the info. Barring hearing something from you otherwise after you see it, I’ll probably plan to take her to see it on Saturday.
You know, I just saw a trailer for ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’. My boys got awfully excited when that bad boy came on the screen (although I’m a little surprised Conor didn’t make an issue out of the crystal goblet).
That’s so funny about the Incredibles. Was over at my freinds’ apartment for a party last week and we all said “Watch! Someone’s gonna get on TV and say that FF is just ripping off the Incredibles!” Great minds think alike, even brain-damaged ones like mine….
(As kind of a follow up, is anybody else out there bothered by the novels for anticipated movies coming out weeks before the premieres? I picked up Sith like 3 weeks before the movie and I picked up FF 2 or 3 weeks ago. Granted, I had some idea of what the stories were going in, but didn’t the books used to come out the same time as the movies or am I just clueless? About the whole book/movie thing, we ALL know that I’m clueless…)
I hope the movie is a hit. I’d love to see the sequel with Silver Surfer and Doc Doom.
I don’t know why more stores don’t carry the FF’s 550 or 440 issues of the comic on DVD Rom. I asked the staff at Best Buy and they looked at me like I grew an exrta head. Why buy comics on DVD? Because I don’t need a warehouse to store 550 or so issues!
I’d like to see this one become popular because we need less of the grim and gritty movies and more with a sense of wonder like the Fantastic Four.
When you mention the Fantastic Four to the general populace they don’t know who they are…I am very much hope this is a good film; because if it isn’t I don’t believe it will get a second chance.
I hope the movie is a hit. I’d love to see the sequel with Silver Surfer and Doc Doom.
I don’t know why more stores don’t carry the FF’s 550 or 440 issues of the comic on DVD Rom. I asked the staff at Best Buy and they looked at me like I grew an exrta head. Why buy comics on DVD? Because I don’t need a warehouse to store 550 or so issues!
I’d like to see this one become popular because we need less of the grim and gritty movies and more with a sense of wonder like the Fantastic Four.
When you mention the Fantastic Four to the general populace they don’t know who they are…I am very much hope this is a good film; because if it isn’t I don’t believe it will get a second chance.
I hope the movie is a hit. I’d love to see the sequel with Silver Surfer and Doc Doom.
I don’t know why more stores don’t carry the FF’s 550 or 440 issues of the comic on DVD Rom. I asked the staff at Best Buy and they looked at me like I grew an exrta head. Why buy comics on DVD? Because I don’t need a warehouse to store 550 or so issues!
I’d like to see this one become popular because we need less of the grim and gritty movies and more with a sense of wonder like the Fantastic Four.
When you mention the Fantastic Four to the general populace they don’t know who they are…I am very much hope this is a good film; because if it isn’t I don’t believe it will get a second chance.
Why buy comics on DVD?
Well, they’re in PDF, for one, which is a joke.
There’s a great program out there, called CDisplay, which displays images within zips or rars, and is far faster than loading that piece of bloatware called Acrobat.
1You know, I just got home after seeing the movie at a semi-sneak peak screening (and the obligatory trip to a bar afterwards) and I have to say, I enjoyed the hëll out of that movie. Not perfect, no. Neither was Batman (any of them), neither was the XZ flicks or Spidey… but in much the same way they seemed to just get the feel right. I was more worried about the FF coming off as just super-heroes, fighting crime and saving cats up trees that I was happy not to have to suffer thru that. And while stuff was changed (whether necessary or not) it was at least consistent. Sure, Tobey isn’t how I pictured Peter and Hugh JAckman couldnt be further away from MY ideal wolverine but still… they worked within the context of the movies… and this worked for me. It was exciting and funny and even my date enjoyed it immensely. And she walked out of the theatre saying “Ok, so you know the real story of the Fantastic Four… was it close?” She knew the characters but not the story and all I said was “Did you like it?” “Yeah!” “Then it was close enough.”